The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

The Spy Who Shtupped Me

Posted on | January 20, 2011 | 5 Comments

From Merry Old England comes some interesting news — police spies leading the War on Extremist Nookie:

A police spy married an activist he met while undercover in the environmental protest movement and then went on to have children with her, the Guardian can reveal.
He is the fourth spy now to have been identified as an undercover police officer engaged in the covert surveillance of eco-activists. Three of those spies are accused of having had sexual relationships with the people they were targeting. . . .
Meanwhile the ex-wife of the fourth undercover police officer spoke to the Guardian. The woman was married to Jim Boyling, a serving Metropolitan police officer who spent five years living undercover with environmental campaigners between 1995 and 2000.
Using the false identity “Jim Sutton”, Boyling infiltrated Reclaim the Streets, an environmental group famed for bringing streets to a standstill in unruly protests against cars.
During his time undercover, when he is said to have become a key organiser, Boyling met a 28-year-old woman and began a relationship with her. He later disappeared from her life.
It was only when he reappeared a year later that he told the woman he was a police officer. They later married and had two children but divorced two years ago.
Speaking for the first time, the woman gave the Guardian a detailed account of their relationship and alleges that Boyling . . . [t]old her a ruling from seniors that undercover operatives should not have sex with targets was unrealistic, and developing relationships with activists was “a necessary tool in maintaining cover.”

Yeah, baby, you’re a “necessary tool.” How romantic!

If nothing else, this startling revelation confirms that environmentalist chicks are both stupid and easy.

Category: Crime, Environmentalism, Great Britain, Scandal, Sex

Dear God, Not Huckabee, Please

Posted on | January 20, 2011 | 54 Comments

At MSNBC, Chuck Todd is doing cartwheels in his Team Obama cheerleader skirt over a poll showing a spike in the president’s approval. What ought to have Republicans calling the suicide hotline is the poll’s numbers showing Mike Huckabee ahead of the GOP 2012 pack:

Looking ahead to the 2012 presidential race, the NBC/WSJ poll shows Obama leading Mike Huckabee by 10 points (51%-41%) and Newt Gingrich by 19 points (54%-35%). The December poll had him leading Mitt Romney by seven (47%-40%) and Sarah Palin by 22 (55%-33%). But keep in mind: At this stage of the 1996 cycle, McInturff says, Bob Dole was leading Bill Clinton in the NBC/WSJ poll. That tells us one of two things: Either these polls aren’t that reliable this far out, or that Obama enters the 2012 in a much stronger position than Clinton did in ’96. For the first time, our poll also handicapped the ’12 GOP field. Leading the pack are Romney (the first choice of 19% of Republicans and independents) and Huckabee (18%) — followed by Palin (14%), Gingrich (10%), Ron Paul (8%), and Tim Pawlenty (at 5%). We also asked “second choice,” and if you take Palin out, the person who benefits the most is Huckabee. He would lead a Palin-less GOP primary, not Romney.

Before you swallow that bottle of sleeping pills, slash your wrists and stick your head in the oven, however, let me remind you that these are nationwide numbers, that the poll’s methodology looks screwy — Da Tech Guy thinks the sample is not exacfly random — and that the results of the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary will not be determined by such craptastic media trickery. Actual people have to cast actual votes, and the Iowa caucuses are still a year away.

P.S.: Apologies for the mental image of Chuck Todd doing cartwheels in a cheerleader skirt.

Category: Election 2012, Mike Huckabee, MSNBC, Polls

Senators: Repeal ObamaCare Now!

Posted on | January 20, 2011 | 8 Comments

The House has voted for repeal, and now the folks who brought you the Tea Party Express are demanding that the Senate take action:

From CampaignToDefeatObama.com.

Mitch McConnell is promising an up-or-down Senate vote on repeal. Let’s keep their feet to the fire, folks. Give us an up-or-down vote, and if it doesn’t pass, we’ll vote out the SOBs in November 2012 — and if the next bunch of SOBs can’t get it done, we’ll just keep voting out SOBs until we do get it repealed.


Category: Barack Obama, Health Care

A Liberal Looks at Zeitgeist

Posted on | January 20, 2011 | 31 Comments

She hates conservatives and doesn’t seem to care too much for me, but Sarah Posner at Religious Dispatches is at least willing to take a serious look at the Zeitgeist phenomenon:

Because the film draws on a jumble of disparate conspiracy theories — from religion to 9/11 to the Federal Reserve — to paint a vision of secretive, dark powers controlling our economy, politics, and social systems, it’s hard to characterize it as left or right, as Mike [Altman] discussed in his post about the religion section of the film. The film, a repository of conspiracy theories, seemingly incongruously is connected to a movement that has claimed its chief mission is sustainability.
While the Zeitgeist Movement sells itself as being about peace and sustainability, though, the film about the Federal Reserve draws mostly on conspiracy theories favored on the far right about “international bankers” controlling the economy, theories with anti-Semitic roots (replace “international” with “Jewish” — although the film doesn’t describe any of its villains as being Jewish). At one point the film flashes a scare quote attributed to Mayer Amschel Rothschild, “Give me control of a nation’s money and I care not who makes the laws”– oft recycled on right-wing conspiracy websites, even though there’s no proof that Rothschild ever said it. . . . Conservative writer Byron York might believe they “resemble far-right paranoia from many years ago,” but if he pays a visit to the John Birch Society table at CPAC next month, he may be able to discuss similar conspiracy theories there.

OK, I’m going to interrupt here to point out that, whatever you say about them, the John Birch Society has never been anti-Semitic (or racist, for that matter). That the Birchers view the world through a conspiratorial prism, no one can deny, but it’s unfair to brand them Jew-haters when they’re not. And when you associate “right-wing” with anti-Semitism, you’re talking about a “right-wing” that hasn’t had any significant, practical influence among American conservatives since the days of Charles Lindbergh and the America Firsters. (That rara avis — a “peace” movement liberals hate.)

While I’m on this topic, how is it that, on the one hand, the Left gets away with Hamas-hugging and portaying the GOP as controlled by “neocons” — nudge, nudge — while on the other hand the Left routinely accuses conservatives of being anti-Semitic? It’s another one of those damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don’t traps where liberals arrange the terms of discourse in such a way as to put conservatives in a no-win situation.

OK, so we return to Posner’s Zeitgeist article:

Even though it draws on the right’s conspiracy theories, the film is disdained by the segments of the right, even before it was linked to Loughner. As Julie [Ingersoll] has documented, Christian Reconstructionists share a disdain for the Fed and believe it to be “unbibilical.” But the Christian Reconstructionist group American Vision years ago ripped into Zeitgeist’s segment on religion, calling it “cavalier nonsense.” . . .
But unpacking Zeitgeist may be more interesting than for understanding Loughner. The movement has a following, and unknown numbers — perhaps millions — of people have watched the films. . . . How those conspiracy theories made their way into a film which claims to be about peace and sustainability, and were blandly accepted by people buying the sustainability narrative, might be more interesting than how the film influenced Jared Loughner.

Exactly. Forget about trying to play a partisan game of pin-the-tail-on-the-scapegoat. The apparent connection between the Zeitgeist phenomenon and the Tucson massacre is such a potentially fascinating story that it frustrates me to no end that major news organizations are ignoring it.

Y’all hit the tip jar. I’m going to keep digging on this story.

Category: Arizona, Conspiracy Theories, Religion, Zeitgeist

‘The Sterile Laboratories of Their Minds’

Posted on | January 20, 2011 | 6 Comments

“The Leftist has no respect or concern with individual human life. It does not play a part in the sterile laboratories of their minds where they grow the fetid cultures that are their utopian ideas. . . . [I]deas are all that matter to the Enlightened Progressive. Every revolution has been based on this thinking and every revolution has brought about mass-murder at the hands of the revolution’s zealots in the name of the new ‘people’s’ state.”
— Bob Belevedere, “The Atrocity Exhibtion,” The Camp of the Saints

Category: Abortion, Camp of the Saints

LIVE AT FIVE – 1.20.11

Posted on | January 20, 2011 | 5 Comments

TOP NEWS
House Votes To Repeal Obamacare

Speaker of the House John Boehner

Three Democrats cross the aisle to vote with GOP. Bipartisanship! 😉

PRC Promises Action On Software Piracy, Protectionism
Hu concedes “a lot needs to be done” to improve human rights in the PRC


DA: Philadelphia Abortionist Killed Seven Babies With Scissors
300-page grand jury report “filled with ghastly, stomach-turning detail”



POLITICS
Rep. Giffords Moving To Houston For Rehab

Rep. Gabrielle Giffords

Stood up and looked out the window of her hospital room today

Concerns Raised About  Troops Using Psych Drugs In Combat Zones

Local Religious Leaders React To Bentley Controversy

Michigan Lawmakers Like Governor Snyder’s General Plan, Await Details

Hu Visit Sees Giant Deal Inked – On Pandas

AFL-CIO’s Trumka Faults “Pro-Business” Obama, Criticizes Rules Review



THE ECONOMY, STUPID
Banks, Tech Send Wall Street To Worst Drop In Two Months
PRC Growth Hits 9.8% In Fourth Quarter
Swiss Banker Convicted Of Handing Bank Documents To Wikileaks
Uncensored ¨Playboy¨Coming To IPad – But No App For That
First Look At Nintendo 3DS (Video)
HP “Palm Pad” May Ship In February



SPORTS
Pavano Re-signs With Twins For Two Years, $16.5 Million

The 'Stache returns to a reloaded Twins squad

Pirates never really in the running

Carmelo Deal Is Dead, Nyets Owner Says

Brady Booked For Foot Surgery

Rockets Clamp Down On Knicks For Third Straight Win

Venerable Hope Golf Classic Needs Revamp

NFL Players Take Lobbying Effort To Capitol Hill

Dooling Scores Season-High 23 As Bucks Extend Wizards’ Road Skid

Panthers Choke, Lose To Blue Jackets In OT



FAMOUS FOR BEING FAMOUS
Drunk Christina Aguilera Passes Out In Jeremy Renner’s Bed

Jeremy Renner, Christina Aguilera

Nothing like showing up uninvited, then getting wasted and passing out at someone’s 40th

Anne Hathaway Cast As Catwoman In “Dark Knight Rises“

Ricky Gervais To Cameo On U.S. “Office”

Star: Hilary Duff Is Pregnant!

Hilary: No, I’m Not!

Charlie Sheen: Coke And Hookers In Las Vegas

Selina Gomez: The Topless Photo Is FAKE!

Brooklyn Decker Lightens The Burden Of Living In This World



FOREIGNERS
Tunisian Demonstrators Demand Purge Of RCD Party From Government
Baby Doc: “I Have No Presidential Ambitions”
Suicide Bomber Kills 15 Iraqi Police In Diyala Province
One-Third Of Vietnam’s Politburo Steps Down; Losing Touch With Youth?
Towns Isolated As Floods Sweep Victoria



BLOGS & STUFF
Michelle Malkin: Civility Watch – Nazis And Crosshairs And Killer, Oh My!
Protein Wisdom: Hawaii Governor Can’t Find Obama Birth Certificate
Jammie Wearing Fool: Like Rats Deserting A Sinking Ship
Pirate’s Cove: Wacky Sheila Jackson Lee; Also, 200 Economists Call For Repeal Of Obamacare
Megan McArdle: The Rise And Fall Of The Labor Force
Gateway Pundit: Rep. Paul Ryan Eviscerates The Obamacare Fiscal House Of Cards (Video)
WSJ: The New Light Bulbs Lose A Little Shine
RedState: The Winning Statistic In The Same-Sex Marriage Debate

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Category: Live at Five

ObamaCare Repeal Bill Gets 245 Votes; ObamaCare Passage Only Got 219 Votes

Posted on | January 19, 2011 | 11 Comments

Philip Klein points out this fact at The American Spectator. As an indicator of majoritarian sentiment, I’d say that’s a pretty good argument for Republicans to push for a vote in the Senate.

Also: Three House Democrats — Dan Boren of Oklahoma, Mike Ross of Arkansas and Mike McIntyre of North Carolina — joined all 242 Republicans in voting to repeal ObamaCare. We’re waiting for Steve Cohen to denounce these Democrats as Nazi stooges. Maybe DailyKos can target them in next year’s primaries.

Strangely enough, 10 Democrats who voted “no” on passage in 2009 also voted against repeal, which gives the GOP ammunition against them in the next election cycle: If you wouldn’t vote to pass it, why won’t you vote to repeal it?

Category: Health Care

Packers Fans: ‘New Tone?’ Bite Me!

Posted on | January 19, 2011 | 9 Comments

Even since Reince Priebus got the RNC chairmanship, Wisconsinians have become increasingly uncivil:

Via notorious “Chubby Chaser” Dan Collins. We’re currently preparing for our First Annual Dan Collins Plus-Size Dream Girl Lingerie Show. Read more

Category: Football, Piece of Work in Progress, Wisconsin
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